Iguana Inside

During a recent visit to Iguana West, N64.com spoke to the successful developer about its upcoming 1998 lineup. Iguana, whose titles are published by Acclaim Entertainment, is responsible for the immensely popular Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and NFL Quarterback Club '98 on N64, and is preparing a number of exciting titles for the coming year. We interviewed Iguana's J. Moon, whose title, development support manager, doesn't even begin to explain the work he actually does in real life.

Q: Where does your company name and logo come from? Why did you pick an iguana?

Iguana: Jeff Spangenberg was the founder of the company and we were at another development company at the time, and we were breaking away to form Iguana but we didn't have a name. So we picked a name and when we went to the CES show -- and it had already been done. And Jeff had iguanas in his office, he would put them on his dashboard and take them up to Tahoe. So he had "Killer" and "Spike," these two big iguanas that were always walking around the office, and since we didn't have a name for the company we finally named it "Iguana." They were kind of like our mascots. We could have been named "Killer and Spike." (laughs)

Q: I heard you wanted to include an animated polygon Iguana in NFL Quarterback Club '98, similar to the one in Turok -- only that the iguana gets bombarded with footballs. Why was it left out?

Iguana: In any part of the development process, all the meat and potatoes come in at the very end. Every developer wants more time for their game, and so it was just time constraints.

Q: How are sales of your first two N64 titles, Turok and Quarterback Club going?

Iguana: As far as Turok goes, I don't know what the sales are exactly right now. But we're pleased with the sales and we're very pleased with [QBC] Football. From what I understand, it's outselling Madden by about six or seven to one. We're very pleased with the sales and I think they will continue to be great throughout January.

Q: You also launched a new ad campaign for Turok, right?

Iguana: We were showing some TV spots for Turok, to sell Turok Christmas.

Iguana: All I can say is that even in the early stages of development, it is miles above Turok [1]. In animation, light-sourcing, everything. You're going to be pleasantly surprised. It's not a re-hash, it's not just adding some weapons and new levels. It's going to be different from Turok [1] and very, very nice.

Q: Can you tell us whether it's going to be first- or third-person? There have been a lot of rumors that Turok 2 would go the Tomb Raider route.

Iguana: It will not be third-person. Maybe in the future...

Q: How about WWF Warzone? How's it coming along and how does it stack up with THQ's WCW vs. NWO?

Iguana: It's early in development. We're hoping for a release in spring or early summer. Technically, we think we're just far and away from everything else. If you take a look at it, you'll see that the models are very realistic looking. We used "soft-skin" models [polygon models without seam-lines], high poly-count models; we use motion-capture, we have have a ton of motion and a ton of moves for every wrestler. We use video [in the PSX version] and photos of the wrestlers themselves. All our models are photo-realistic.

Technically, I think we're doing fantastic. Right now we're focusing on gameplay. We want the gameplay to be the best out there, also, and that's what we're putting all our effort into right now. You can see that there are a lot of bugs in the gameplay -- as I said, it's still early. We've got a lot of time to do all the work on the gameplay, but visually, we're already 100% better than everyone else.

Q: When can we expect to see a first title from Iguana UK, and which one?

Q: There has been talk about Shadowman being too violent and dark for the N64, and that Acclaim was going to cancel the N64 version and bring the game to the PC and PSX instead. Was that just a rumor?

Iguana: I'm not sure about the outcome of that. I know that a lot of things have changed with Nintendo and the rating system and how they are letting things with more adult content go through.

Q: Are you making progress on All-Star Baseball '98? How's it coming along?

Iguana: Excellent. Nintendo saw a first demo of it with the Mario Club -- and their jaws hit the floor. It is all in hi-res and we're very excited about it. Hopefully, we'll be able to show it to you in January.

Q: Will it be out before Nintendo's Griffey?

Iguana: It will be close. It's all about timing with sports games, if you wait too long you're gonna miss the season. It's actually using an improved version of Quarterback Club's engine.

Q: Are there any plans for more hi-res games from Iguana?

Iguana: We want to try to do them all in hi-res if we can keep the frame rate solid. We feel that we've hit a mark that we have to maintain. We had hoped to get hockey into hi-res -- it's in medium-res -- but we made that decision too late and we would have to start over from scratch. Perhaps for a basketball game.

Q: NBA Jam?

Iguana: [silence]

Q: I think you announced it for the N64 and the PlayStation a while ago...

Q: How about an RPG? Many N64 owners are hungry for RPGs. Any plans at Iguana?

Iguana: No. The closest would be, what... Riven?

Q: But that's not for the N64, right?

Iguana: No, not for the 64.

Q: What can you tell us about Wrecking Balls?

Iguana: I can tell you that it's going to be fun, it's going to be for four-players.

Q: It's a cutesy title, but it's not like Putty Squad...

Iguana: It is NOT like Putty Squad.

Q: Is it Iguana's "Diddy Kong?"

Iguana: Ummm... Yeah! But it's not racing. It's going to be a fun game, it's not a serious game. But I think it will be very catchy.

All-Star Baseball '99

ALL-STAR BASEBALL '99 is the first game in this hard-swinging baseball series from Acclaim Sports. Play and manage your way through the season or slug it out with a friend. A ton of options allow you build your own Major League Baseball team as you try to get to the World Series. New York Yankee radiomen John Sterling and Michael Kay call the action for all 30 teams in their own real parks. Play ball!